Note: This is a seattlepi.com reader blog. It is not written or edited by the P-I. The authors are solely responsible for content. E-mail us at newmedia@seattlepi.com if you consider a post inappropriate.

Scattered showers, increasing clouds, frost–what now?

November. At the very thought, do you catch yourself growing grim, grumpy–downright glum?

At my house, this is the month we annually debate which is the worst: the cold, the wet or the dark. Wet gets my vote, although dark wins a close second.

How to cope?

A novel approach
“Whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul,” Ishmael advises in Moby Dick, “I account it high time to get to sea.” Here on Capitol Hill, who needs this advice? November brings the sea to us, with its constant drips and drabs, capricious winds and power outages.

In Peter Donahue’s latest Seattle novel, Merritt, the sailor arriving here in November 1943, finds the relentless rain almost unbearable. Stunned by the dark at four-o’clock, he retreats to a Broadway bar and a few-too-many highballs. It’s a week before he encounters that curious local cure, the sun break.

Carpe diem
Of course, we get used to it. Even Merritt eventually accepts our November as it is–a month (with more like it ahead) to ignore as best we can. A month when any hope for sun would only be self torture. When any break the sun does give must be seized or lost. No postponing that leaf raking or that hike until after lunch.

Some of us even learn to laugh in the face of darkness. A friend of mine makes it a habit to spend any suddenly sun-kissed winter afternoon at the movies. A kind of “see if I care” tactic.

Some even claim they love the rain. Really?

Nature or nurture
To love cold, dark or wet, maybe you have to be born here. A six-year-old at SeaTac last November brought that home to me. Just off a plane from Cabo San Lucas, the little tyke could hardly contain his glee.

“Seattle!” he chirped. This kid was decidedly delighted to be back in the drizzly damp.

Note: This is a seattlepi.com reader blog. It is not written or edited by the P-I. The authors are solely responsible for content. E-mail us at newmedia@seattlepi.com if you consider a post inappropriate.